Join us in a performance class for WMPI Artists led by Annabelle Berthomé-Reynolds, violin and chamber music faculty member at Levine Music. The class will take place at 2 pm-3:30 pm at Polinger Hall at Levine Music’s Silver Spring campus. All are welcome!
Annabelle Berthomé-Reynolds received her BM and MM in Violin Performance from The Royal Academy of Music in London where she also received her LRAM in Violin Teaching (Licentiate), graduating as Valedictorian. She then pursued an MEd/MPhil in Education at the University of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, where she was awarded a First Class Honors for her thesis on self-regulating strategies and instrumental music learning.
Annabelle has recorded with the White Label, the Muso Label, Indésens / Calliope Records, Naxos, Toccata Classics, and Metier Records. Her double album of female composer Grazyna Bacewicz’s complete sonatas for violin and piano, in collaboration with the Penderecki European Music Centre and Ivan Donchev, received a 4-star rating from BBC Music Magazine and was selected for Apple Music’s “Top 10 Classical Albums You Must Hear this Month” playlist (Nov. 2019). This followed the 2016 release of her first album Con Slugarocko, paying special tribute to American composer Charles Ives and his four sonatas for violin and piano. Annabelle and pianist Luka Okros recently recorded an album featuring contemporary composer Valentin Bibik’s three sonatas for violin and piano (June 2023).
She has also appeared with orchestras including the Longbow Ensemble (UK), the Liège Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (BE), the Lille National Orchestra (FR) and the Royal Flemish Orchestra (BE) and has performed at many festivals including International Spring Orchestra Festival (Malta), the Folles Journées (France) and Wigmore Hall (UK) among others. She has performed premieres and co-creations with Regis Campo, Nicolas Bacri and David Chaillou. She also recently made the world premiere of Denis Bosse’s new Violin Concerto for the Ars Musica Festival (BE) (Fall 2022).
Annabelle is a D’Addario Artist (New York) and an Associate-Artist of the French Society of Authors (ADAMI) since 2021. She performs on a 1860 violin labelled Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume.
Annabelle was previously a Professor of Violin and the Director of Chamber Music (French State Teaching Competition Laureate, tenured) at Roubaix State Conservatory of Music in France from 2016 to 2022. Since 2016, she also works as a Strategic Pedagogy Consultant for the Belgian National Council for Education since 2016. Her research interests focus on neuroscience in music education, motivation, attentive listening, sensorial pedagogy and emotional challenges in instrumental music learning. Also in Belgium, Annabelle held a private practice as a Neuropedagogue and a Learning Profile Specialist for musicians and non-musicians alike.
Annabelle has over 20 years of experience as a violin teacher.
Annabelle’s teaching philosophy is individual, student centric, progressive, and evolutive. She approaches her work with any student holistically and working, with all tools at hand: listening, watching, body language, kinaesthesia.
I believe that music education should first start with teaching how the brain works, how it collects data and memorizes, and to really study the spontaneous learning profile of each student’s brain; i.e., to first define whether students use more their left or right brain, or both, how they do this and through which pathways.
I also very much believe in the power of community and the impact of self-regulated learning: for my students, this means the right to try, the right to make mistakes, and the right to adjust their goals and direct their own learning with the contribution of the classroom community.